By Manuel “Bobby” Orig, Consultant, Apo Agua
BECOMING A CHANGEMAKER
An actionable, inclusive guide to leading positive change at any level
By Alex Budak
STEPPING INTO a leadership role doesn’t require you to be at the top of a group or organization, or even be highly visible. Anyone – regardless of title, personality, race, gender, age, or class – can be a changemaker and affect powerful, positive change from wherever they sit in a workplace or in their community. It’s all about having the right tools, asking the right questions, and taking realistic steps.
Based on his wildly popular UC Berkeley course, professor and entrepreneur Alex Budak presents a radically inclusive playbook for leading positive change.
Becoming a Changemaker offers a fresh, inspiring, and research-based practical guide to developing the mindsets and leadership skills needed to navigate, shape, and lead change, and build thriving organizations.
Praise for the book
Taking this course at UC Berkeley taught me how to lead inclusively, how to inspire others, and how to turn my ideas into reality. But most important, it was the spark that turned me into a changemaker. It gave me the mindset, tools, and foundation I needed to lead positive change, and I can’t wait for readers of this book to experience the same transformative power of Becoming a Changemaker that I experienced.
—IBRAHIM BALDE, founder, Blackbook University
Alex Budak provides a fresh look at leadership today, showing how each of us can lead positive change, whether we are working from the top of an organization or on the front lines.
—BEN RATTRAY, founder, Change.org
About the Author:
ALEX BUDAK is a social entrepreneur and a professional faculty member at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where he created and teaches the transformative course, “Becoming a Changemaker.” He previously cofounded StartSomeGood and held leadership positions at Reach for Change and Change.org. He teaches, speaks, consults, and advises organizations around the world, with the mission of helping people from all walks of life become changemakers. He is a graduate of UCLA and Georgetown University.
INTRODUCTION
In 2012, the author spent a day in Los Angeles, coworking at the offices of Tala, a startup, founded by Shivani Siroya. He was a young scrappy entrepreneur and was content to work anywhere. But he was also grateful Shivani, had opened up a desk for him.
Be the change that you wish to see in the world.
—Mahatma Gandi
They took a morning walk together. Shivani told him about her life and her work, and while she talked, it became clear to him that the labels we often use to identify people who are successful in business, like entrepreneur, founder, and leader, didn’t entirely capture who she was. She was each of these, to be sure, but also more than these.
Shivani began her career working at the United Nations, partnering on microfinance initiatives, before switching careers to become a financial analyst on Wall Street. She had a career many would be envious of, but she found something lacking within the traditional finance sector.
Although she was passionate about finance, she was also very interested in the over 2.5 billion people around the world who did not yet have a formal financial identity and were excluded from traditional markets. This inspired her to begin sketching out the idea that became Tala. In a half-page document, Shivani wrote that Tala would be an “online global investment fund … which enables everyday people to put their money to work in order to change the world.” And she made the case for why her company was urgently needed, seeking to “bridge the gap by providing smaller financial investments and training to ensure entrepreneurs can achieve their goals and make a profound impact within their communities.”
It’s an inspiring vision, but what truly impressed the author about Shivani was not the what of her idea but rather the how. She had no formal experience as an entrepreneur, and she did not let that stop her. She began building her vision piece by piece, she reached out to contacts and strangers on LinkedIn (ultimately sending over fifteen hundred individual messages!) and she assembled a small part-time team. With some initial success, she faced a choice: continue the safe, prestigious, hard-earned Wall Street career she had coveted, or dedicate her full energy and time to Tala.
She found the courage and took the leap.
And she hadn’t looked back, growing her startup’s footprint to multiple continents, multiple products, and multiple offices. Hers has been an impressive journey, but what stays with the author the most is not the scale of Shivani’s venture or the impact she had. It’s the personal qualities she possesses. Her willingness to question the status quo. Her inclusive leadership. Her service orientation.
The author realized on that walk that we often ascribe the success of leaders whom we admire to their more tangible skills – such as Shivani’s financial acumen – as we seek to replicate their success. But the personal qualities that make Shivani the impactful leader and founder she is are actually changemaker qualities. They are attributes of character, of hustle, of heart, of passion, and of persistence. And these changemaker qualities can be learned and practiced by anyone, no matter who we are or where we might have been.
DEFINING CHANGEMAKING
The first popular mention of the word changemaker dates back to 1981, when the social impact organization Ashoka used the term in its annual newsletter. Ashoka defines a changemaker as “someone who is taking creative action to solve a social problem.” While Ashoka deserves credit for beginning to bring the term into our collective parlance, the author believe that the concept of a changemaker deserves a wider and more inclusive definition, far beyond the constraints of social challenges.
The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do.
—Steve Jobs
Put simply, he define a changemaker as someone who leads positive change from where they are.
He is deliberate in keeping the definition simple and radically inclusive. He believes that a middle manager at a technology company who comes up with a creative new feature has just as much claim to being a changemaker as a Nobel Prize winner. He is not prescriptive here on the scale or scope of change, and he prefer an inclusive invitation to lead change from wherever we might be – whether that’s as an intern, an individual contributor, or a CEO.
Ultimately, changemakers should not be defined by roles, sectors, or levels of impact. Instead, the author believe that what unites them is their mindset, their leadership skills, and their action in service of change.
BEGINNINGS
The author’s professional career had been dedicated to creating platforms and opportunities to help changemakers of every possible kind succeed. He began by cofounding StartSomeGood.com, which helps changemakers all around the world take their first step from idea to action. The website and community that he and his team built have empowered an incredible collection of over fifteen hundred changemakers to catalyze, fund, and create projects to make their positive-change initiatives a reality.
We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in our hands to make a difference.
—Nelson Mandela
He then had the privilege of leading an incubator for social innovators in Sweden, called Reach for Change. He coached and mentored many inspiring changemakers, helping them achieve their highest potential impact. Alongside some tremendously talented individuals, they helped raise over $30 million to scale Change.org into the world’s largest platform for change. Throughout it all, he’s been fortunate to be able to run workshops and lead trainings for budding changemakers in dozens of countries, from Ukraine to Cambodia, and in settings ranging from the World Bank to UN agencies, to leading corporations and universities around the world.
Looking back now and connecting the dots, it’s exceedingly clear that all of these experiences led to a serendipitous meeting with Jay Stowsky, the senior assistant dean for instruction at UC Berekely’s Haas School of Business. Throughout his career as an entrepreneur, executive, and educator, there has been a common thread to all of his work : teaching and inspiring change. And yet he never considered teaching change at the college level to be an option. Jay has always been a mentor to him, and so he went to his office seeking some advice on a career transition. Jay asked him: “But, Alex, what do you really want to do.”
“Becoming a changemaker,” he said confidently, not a shred of hesitation or fear in his voice.
“Okay,” Jay responded. “Go make a syllabus, show it to me and we will go from there.”
The process of developing the course allowed him to reflect on all the lessons he learned up until that time, particularly in his pursuit of positive change. The books he has read, the people from around the world whose stories have inspired him, the ideas about leading change from disciplines as wide-ranging as physics and music: All of these informed the syllabus, lectures, and hands-on experiences. Through his work, a clearer picture began to emerge, one that would help students harness their energy and enthusiasm and give them the real skills and mindsets to empower them to create positive change at an individual, organizational, and societal level.
He carried all his experiences – the triumphs, the setbacks, and the insights – with him as he stood just outside the door of his classroom for the first time. He took a moment to collect himself and then opened the door. What he saw nearly moved him to tears: Not only was every single seat in the classroom filled, but students were sitting in the aisles, on the windowsills, and standing alongside the walls, hoping for a spot in the class. UC Berkeley students can select from over six thousand courses per semester, so to see his classroom bursting at the seams made his mission crystal clear: he would now put all his efforts into making sure these students would not only become leaders but also the changemaker the world needs.
DEVELOPING A CHANGEMAKER MINDSET
Hana was skeptical. Concerned the author sent her a note after class, to see how she was feeling about the course and if everything was okay. When Hana responded, he was surprised.
“I really want to be a changemaker,” her email began. “I really do. But I just don’t believe it’s possible anymore. I lost hope in being able to create change.”
He felt, and even recognized, her despair, and his heart sank. Still, he saw this as an opportunity to better understand her experience and to support her to once again identify as a changemaker.
Hana told him of a frustrating experience she’d had during a summer internship, where she’d attempted to lead a diversity-and-inclusion initiative. Although she had lots of support from her peers and her direct manager, her efforts were repeatedly blocked by more senior managers. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t make change happen. As a result, Hana hit a wall. She stopped believing that change was possible, and that she could ever make any type of positive change happen.
The author empathized with her. In fact, he had once been in a very similar situation himself. And they began working together to develop her changemaker mindset – a new way of seeing herself and her place in the world around her.
YOUR MINDSET
Leaders are by definition – change makers. When you are called to lead, you are called to advance, move forward, and improve the situation.
—Jonathan Michael Bowman, J.D.
Before we can begin creating change for others, we must start from within. There are four reasons why the author is passionate about helping others develop a changemaker mindset:
- Each of us has incredible power over our mindset; it’s based on an internal locus of control.
- Developing a changemaker mindset is practicable, learnable, and achievable by anyone. He worked with all kinds of people on this, running the gamut from a formerly incarcerated person to the CEO of a big financial firm. They approached the process in different ways, but the end result was the same.
- This change is a process, not a destination. It’s not like there’s ever a moment where we can clap our hands and go, “Okay, great. I’m done with my changemaker mindset!” Rather, it’s like physical fitness – it’s not something developed by one or two gym visits, but by a commitment to the process of regular training.
- Finally, it’s a virtuous cycle for work and for life. While many are inspired to develop their changemaker mindset for work goals, this shift in mindset ends up being equally important for their other roles as parents, friends, and neighbors.
Mindset can simply be defined as the “established set of attitudes held by someone.” Much of the credit for this term is due to Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, who later wrote an influential book on the topic, in which she differentiates between two types of mindsets – growth and fixed.
A fixed mindset, according to Dweck, is the set of beliefs that one’s basic qualities – say intelligence or talent – are unalterable and predetermined traits.
A growth mindset, on the other hand, emerges from the belief that one’s abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. People with a growth mindset embrace learning and practice resilience in support of their advancement.
Dweck teaches that each of us has the ability to develop a growth mindset – and that’s it’s not completely binary. We might have some instances where we display more of a fixed mindset and some where we are able to engage our growth mindset.
Someone with a fixed mindset might believe that intelligence is static, leading to a desire to appear smart. Meanwhile, someone with a growth mindset believes that intelligence can be developed, leading to a desire to learn.
We also see this when we look through the lens of challenges and obstacles. Someone with a fixed mindset will avoid challenges at all costs. Meanwhile, someone with a growth mindset will persist. They’ll embrace these challenges as a chance for learning and development.
QUESTION THE STATUS QUO
The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
—Warren G. Bennis
Bryan Stevenson is not your average Harvard Law School graduate.
When he started law school, he had never actually met a lawyer himself, having grown up in a poor, rural community. His belief that everyone should receive justice, especially the most readily forgotten in our society, is what drove him to pursue the profession. He felt called, he says, to a “a commitment to human rights and equal justice, which became a way for me to think about how I wanted to spend my time.”
But during law school, Stevenson observed that among his classmates “the conversations seemed, initially, very disconnected from issues like helping the poor or creating justice for those who were marginalized.”
When he graduated, he wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to do with his degree, but he had developed a world-class legal skill set and he knew he wouldn’t be content to merely uphold the existing order with his career: “The rule of law was for me, a very captivating forum in which to think about changing things,” he said, “I continue to believe it is a powerful space for reform.”
An early experience during law school, working with the Southern Center for Human Rights, transformed him. There he met people who were desperately in need of legal help yet whose stories and sentences displayed the bias in the legal system against the poor people and people of color.
In 1989, with little money in his pocket but big ambitions for change, he began his life’s work , founding the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), which “works to end mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and racial inequality.” EJI began by guaranteeing legal representation to anyone in Alabama sentenced to the death penalty. EJI has helped overturn over 125 wrongful convictions – people who would have been executed otherwise – and Stevenson led a challenge that went to the US Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled that sentencing children seventeen or younger to life imprisonment was unconstitutional.
Stevenson has built his career and his impact by being willing to do what others would not. “Somebody has to stand when other people are sitting,” he asserts. “Somebody has to speak when other people are quiet.”
With his intelligence, training, and talent, Stevenson could have found success in any traditional area of law he were to choose. Instead, he has made his mark by consistently questioning the status quo about everything from what it means to be a lawyer to whether the justice system truly serves Americans. Stevenson has been able to deliver much positive change throughout his life because he has embraced three bold principles of questioning the status quo:
He dialed up his curiosity in law school, regularly questioning why so many people in the US were excluded from receiving the justice they deserved. He diverged from conventional ways of thinking about the concept of justice by centering the needs of the very least likely to receive justice and then actively advocating for their rights.
He zigged when others zagged, deciding to create his own legal justice organization in a part of the country far different from where he attended law school. Informed by his early experiences, he went all in to public-interest law, dedicating his life to advocating for the most vulnerable. He used his voice to speak for those individuals few others would take on as clients, including people sentenced to death. In doing so, he always championed the humanity in those readily ignored by most, reminding each of us that we’re more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.
He took smart risks in supporting new clients – no matter how troubled or vulnerable they were. These were challenging cases, where the odds were stacked against his clients and where judgements in their favor would be that much more difficult to achieve. Further, he took on risk as an individual as well, putting his own success and well-being at stake, knowing the type of work he pursued wouldn’t come with financial payoff. But the payoff – in many cases saving a person from a death sentence – meant that these risks came with a significant reward, ultimately making them smart risks worth taking.
“We cannot change the world if we aren’t willing to do things that are uncomfortable and inconvenient,” he advises fellow changemakers, balancing realism with hope. “Injustice prevails where hopelessness persists. Hope is your superpower. Don’t let anybody or let anything make you hopeless. Hope is the enemy of injustice.”
Stevenson’s willingness to question the status quo – and to channel the aforementioned principles – has made him the changemaker he is today.
WHY QUESTION THE STATUS QUO?
There are two maxims around change: that it’s happening, and that it’s challenging. With so much change happening all around us, from technological advances to public health challenges to urbanization to shifting workplace cultures and beyond, we no longer have the luxury of attempting to insulate ourselves from these macro-and-micro-level changes with inaction.
Even previous successes no longer guarantee future triumphs. Of the five hundred companies listed in the first-ever Fortune 500 list in 1955, only fifty-two (10.4 percent) still remain on the list, with the majority either merging with other firms or going out of business completely. This dynamism means that we can’t rest on our laurels as individuals or as organizations – that we must be consistently challenging convention and finding new ways to evolve, change, and grow. Changemakers who can question the status quo are the ones who will find opportunities for positive change and then pursue them, even if that means shaking-up existing norms and practices.
CONFIDENCE WITHOUT ATTITUDE
Confidence without attitude is critical or today’s leaders.
—Ann Harrison, Dean of the Haas School of Business
Malaysia-based changemaker Gwen Yi Wong speaks with a confidence that belies her age. You can almost see how quickly the synapses in her brain fire as she gazes out from behind her wire-rimmed glasses. She has been an innovator from as early as she can remember, always with a strong desire to build meaningful projects and to connect, help, and inspire others.
Because of that, most people would assume she was thriving when an organization she cofounded, Tribeless, received worldwide attention for its first product, the Empathy Box. The Empathy Box which has now been used in over thirty countries, is a facilitation and connection tool to help teams and groups practice empathy, respect, and mutual understanding, and she had become the face of it.
Wong built a strong founding team, and by all outside measures the organization was taking off under her leadership. But inside, as the company grew exponentially, she was struggling under the weight of it all. She was concerned by how her identity had become so wrapped up in this product, and she realized that there might be a mismatch between her strongest skills, as a visionary and change catalyst, and the traits Tribeless needed from a leader now in this growth stage, around product management and operations.
“I wasn’t some brilliant, business-minded startup CEO,” she said as she came to that conclusion, “and my baby was actually better off in someone else’s hands.”
It took months of processing and having difficult conversations before she realized she needed to step down as CEO. “By learning to let go of this role,” she said, “I was letting go of so much else – the emotional baggage I’d attached to Tribeless, the societal expectations I’d internalized, and most importantly, the idea that I’m some perfect, wise, irreproachable person.” Her decision was rooted in humility and was made possible because of her confidence to do something really hard.
While mentoring and advising changemakers around the world, the author supported many leaders in Gwen’s exact position, yet many of them lacked her self-awareness. Some also had overactive egos, which stopped them from recognizing what Gwen did: that the best thing for her organization at that point in time – and for her personally – was not to double down on something that wasn’t working but to have the humility to step aside. She stayed on the leadership team in a position that better played to her many strengths, and her cofounder stepped up to become CEO.
“Leadership isn’t about pretending you have it all together, or telling others what to do,” she told the author. “It’s about humility and vulnerability and trust, and being willing to put yourself last.”
Developing a changemaker mindset often requires holding two seemingly contradictory traits simultaneously: Having a strong personal vision yet being open to collaborating with others. Employing drive and determination to push through barrier after barrier yet knowing when to step back and recharge.
HUMILITY AS A STRENGTH
When the author begin teaching executive audiences about the importance of humility, he used to seeing eyes roll. So he lead with a crucial message: Despite what you may think, humility is not weakness.” He often repeat for effect, challenging the assumption head-on. He does so with confidence (but not attitude) because the data are on his side. Being humble is actually one of the greatest strengths a leader can have.
Humility isn’t denying your strengths; it’s being honest about your weaknesses.
—Rick Warren
A powerful study conducted by Amy Ou, David Waldman, and Suzanne Peterson, titled “Do Humble CEOs Matter? An Examination of CEO Humility and Firm Outcomes,” paints an exceedingly clear picture. They examined 105 different companies after giving all of the CEOs a test to measure their level of humility. Ready for some spoilers? Here’s what they discovered: Humble CEOs were found to have reduced pay disparity between themselves and their staff, they hired more diverse management teams, and they gave staff the ability to lead and innovate. Humble leaders have less employee turnover, higher employee satisfaction, and, more crucially they improve the company’s bottom line performance.
Still not convinced? A study from two Canadian researchers shows that leaders low in humility are more likely to overreact during conflict. And a study from Duke University shows that the more intellectually humble a subject is, the less likely they are to be susceptible to misinformation, they are better at handling ambiguity, and they are less likely to continue pushing forward on a path they know is wrong for fear of looking weak.
LOOKING OUT FOR HUMILITY
Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, is notorious for his rigorous, data-driven analysis. In 2001 he and his team used “matched-pair analysis” where they analyzed two very similar companies – Wells Fargo and Bank of America – to examine why one company thrived while the other remained stagnant. In addition to findings on corporate strategy and market positioning, the data show that the leaders of “great” companies had two traits in common: fierce resolve and humility. It surprised many, including Collins himself, that one of the defining reasons a company became truly great is that the leader of the company was a humble one.
In explaining the concept of humility to skeptical audiences – often individuals working at leading companies like those he studied, who may not readily see humility as a strength – Collins uses the metaphor of a mirror and a window.
When a nonhumble leader receives praise, even if it is not meant for their team, that leader will look at the mirror and take praise for themselves. And when a nonhumble leader receives blame, they will look out the window and project the blame on others.
A humble leader, meanwhile, does the opposite. When praise comes in, even if it’s meant for them, they will look out the window and share that praise with their team. And, conversely, when blame comes in, even if it’s not meant for them, they will look in the mirror and take the blame themselves.
What is your default approach when you receive praise or blame? As we seek to develop our humility, think of this analogy: If you receive praise for a team that you led, will you find humility to share that praise with others instead of taking it for yourself. And in the case that something goes wrong, even if it’s not your fault, will you step up as the leader and take responsibility?
ARE YOU A COLLABORATOR OR A COMPROMISER?
Collaboration requires working productively through conflict. Let’s look deeper at collaboration to help you understand what your default approach to conflict is, through understanding and applying the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, or the TKI model. It’s a simple but powerful tool to provide you with self-awareness about your default approach to conflict and disagreement.
Collaboration allows us to know more than we are capable of knowing by ourselves.
—Paul Solarez
Imagine a graph with two axes. On the vertical y-axis is “Assertiveness,” defined as “the extent to which a person attempts to satisfy their own concerns,” from low to high. On the horizontal x-axis is “Cooperativeness,” defined as the extent to which the person attempts to satisfy the other person’s concerns,” from low to high. Where would you place yourself on these two scales? Your answer will determine how you tend to react to conflict, and there is a surprising place on the graph that yields the most effective collaborations.
If you rated high on assertiveness but low on cooperativeness, your approach is “competing.” You try to satisfy your own concerns at your teammate’s expense.
If you rated yourself low on assertiveness but high but high on cooperativeness, your approach is “accommodating.” You attempt to satisfy your teammate’s concerns at the expense of your own.
Now, here is where it gets really interesting. Most people think that the best possible approach to conflict is being moderate on both assertiveness and cooperativeness. But this actually leaves us in a messy, uncomfortable middle ground called “compromising.” You try to find an acceptable settlement that only partially satisfies your concerns and those of your teammate, meaning neither of you walk away from the work feeling particularly happy.
It may seem paradoxical, but the very best collaboration happens when you are high on both assertiveness (looking out for your own needs) and also cooperativeness ( looking out for your partner). This is “collaboration” on the TKI graph. You try to find a win-win solution that completely satisfies your concerns and your teammates concerns. Collaboration opens up all kinds of new possibilities.
Just like having confidence without attitude means being both confident and humble, collaboration requires you both to pursue your own goals and, simultaneously, those of others, not to sulk away to some disappointing middle ground.
Collaboration is where confidence, humility, and trust all come together.
LEADING CHANGE WHEN CHANGE IS HARD
“I was like, oh my goodness, I have to calm my nerves,” Carolyn Davis said as she reflected on the moments before she delivered a three-minute speech in front of twenty-five thousand people at a packed University of Arkansas arena. She heard the boos that greeted the previous speaker before her. She said, “I’m thinking I’m next. And I think my heart sunk even further.”
On the surface, Davis seemed like an unlikely person to be about to step up to address Walmart’s executive leadership team and tens of thousands of shareholders. She’s an associate at a Walmart store in Outer Brooks, North Carolina. Her town of Bayboro has a total population of 1,210, equivalent to less than 5 percent of the number of people in the crowd that day in June 2017. She had never sought out the spotlight, especially with the risks that she knew might come from speaking out about an issue at her job. But she recounted “The will to help people outweighed the notion that I might be fired.”
Davis is a mother of two grown children and one grandchild, something that informed her decision to step up and become a changemaker. One of her colleagues was pregnant and was stuck in the unsettling position that so many new moms face: how to pay her bills while taking time off from work to recover from birth and be with her new child.
Davis realized that company executives received their full salary and ten weeks of paid family leave when they had a child, while associates like her received only half pay for six to eight weeks maximum. What could Davis do to change this? She started by talking to others.
She began with conversations. And when those conversations indicated that many other associates had struggled with the same issue, she took the next step: trying to engage a wider community on social media. From there, she did surveys to discover what store associates really needed, and then launched a petition to call on Walmart executives to change the company’s policies. She’d expected a few hundred signatures. But Davis tapped into a collective need. To her absolute shock, she gathered over one hundred thousand employee signatures. “To have a group behind you, giving you support, it makes a great difference,” she said. “There is power in numbers.”
Armed with a box containing all the signatures, Davis and other colleagues hand-delivered it to the office of Walmart’s CEO. Soon after, this reluctant public speaker was about to step up to the microphone, twenty-five thousand pairs of eyes fixed upon her.
“My name is Carolyn Davis, from store 1300. I am a Walmart associate from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where I proudly serve our customers,” she began. She then made her call for change clear: “Investing in associates means that new parents in Walmart are allowed time to bond with our children. Walmart’s female executives receive ten weeks of paid family leave. Let’s do the same for hourly associates, women and men.” She used the remaining three minutes of her time to continue making the case for equality for all workers and to stand up for associates like her who wanted time to be with her baby without worrying every day about whether she could still pay her bills.
By building a groundswell of support, and by giving voice to so many others, Davis had tapped into something powerful. Unlike the speaker before her, she was greeted with claps, and shouts of “Yes!” Davis didn’t set out to be a vocal leader, but by taking many successive small steps, she was able to grab the microphone with the power of thousands behind her.
A few months after Davis’s address, Walmart announced an expanded policy for paid family leave. Now all employees, including hourly employees, would receive ten weeks of full pay.
Davis had the odds against her when she started her change efforts. But she applied some crucial approaches for leading change when change is hard, from engaging different groups of stakeholders in unique ways to leveraging culture as a catalyst for change, to overcoming the status quo.
YOUR THEORY OF CHANGE
As changemakers, we are often fighting our way through uncertainty and ambiguity. In fact, this unpredictability is one of the defining features of leading any change initiative.
There’s a powerful tool the author teach his students called the “theory of change” model, which helps changemakers visualize and overcome precisely this challenge. Though we can never eliminate uncertainty completely, this tool has helped countless changemakers proceed with their efforts in spite of the inevitable unpredictability they face.
The author always lead with the why behind tools and concepts, and here, the why is abundantly clear: The theory of change model can serve as the foundation for what change effort does and why it does it. And it can provide you with clarity for mapping out how your actions connect to the larger change that you want to create. A theory of change should fundamentally answer three questions:
- What is the impact of change that you’re hoping to make?
- What is the mechanism, the actions through which you can pursue and make that impact or that change?
- How will you know when you’ve achieved the change?
Though it is most often used in nonprofit settings, the author believe this tool is applicable to visualizing and strategizing changes of all kinds, irrespective of sector or scale.
The essence of a theory of change model is creating a logically sound set of linkages, in which you map out how the work that you do leads to an outcome that you want to achieve.
THE CHANGEMAKER CANVASS
The author realized that changemakers have a common set of tools for leading change, and that for all changemakers, leading change can be downright challenging and scary.
To address this concern, the author developed the Changemaker Canvass.
It helps changemakers take change initiatives and break them down into smaller, manageable blocks. You will identify concrete steps and actionable activities to help you make your idea an impactful reality. The Changemaker Canvass attempts to help you balance the big picture of the world you are changing with the small changes that will get you there.
This tool provides changemakers with clarity on what needs to be done, confidence that they can lead the change, and insights on the first steps toward action. Unlike a business plan which requires pages and pages of writing before you’re taking action, the canvass is a tool to first promote reflection and then promote essential action. Each section should be answered with a maximum response of one paragraph. Often just a single sentence, which emerges from thinking and strategizing, is ideal.
The canvass is broken down into six sections: Vision, Opportunity, The Four S’s of Change, Action, Community, and Approach.
VISION
- The Why. Why do you care about this particular positive change?
- The Vision. Paint a clear, concise, compelling picture for the change you are creating.
- The Change. In one sentence, describe the desired positive change and how you are creating it.
OPPORTUNITY
- Core Problem. One succinct sentence describing the precise issue that you are addressing.
- Consequences. Short-and-long-term implications if the core problem is not addressed.
- Root Causes. The underlying issues (social, legal, historical, cultural, environmental, etc.) that underpin the core problem.
CHANGEs
- Substantive Impact. The intended impact of your project, and 1 to 3 crucial indicators you will measure.
- Scalability. How you will scale this beyond a minimum viable project.
- Sustainability. How will you ensure that this project continues for the long term.
- Systems Change. How you will address root causes (laws, policies, mindsets, rules, etc.) to create systemic change.
ACTION
- Minimum Viable Project. The simplest test you can start running now to learn if this project is worth developing further.
- Plan for Resilience. The obstacles you may face and how you might proactively overcome them.
COMMUNITY
- The Doers. The key changemakers who will be leading this change and their core skills.
- The Evangelists. The most important influencers and advocates whose support/approval are crucial.
- The Community. Who are you serving with this change and how you know this will be a positive change for them.
- The Coalition. Others who care about this and how you will involve them.
APPROACH
- Changemaker Mindset. The key aspects of a changemaker mindset needed to create this positive change.
- Changemaker Leadership. The key aspect of change leadership required to create this positive change.
CONCLUSION
CATALYZING YOUR CHANGEMAKER JOURNEY
Change management is a journey, not just a one-time project, riding ahead of change curve takes both strategy and methodology.
—Pearl Zhu
The author learned that changemaking doesn’t just call upon each of us individually. It invites all of us collectively; it’s a cumulative endeavor. And just as others can inspire us in our changemaker journey, we can, in turn, inspire others. Change can be challenging because it occurs exponentially. That same principle can become our greatest strength as changemakers.
You may not realize it in the moment, but when you start seeing yourself as a changemaker and give yourself permission to make change, you can inspire others to join you. In fact, you may never know about all of the people whose lives you impact through your changemaker actions. But no matter who you are, where you live, or what change you go on to lead, the ripples of your work will reach places you never thought possible.
STANDING ON SHOULDERS
The author’s passion for supporting changemakers comes from the humility to recognize that he can’t possibly know everything the world needs. But he is absolutely positive that one crucial thing it needs is more changemakers: more individuals like you committed to creating the future and leading positive change from wherever you are.
The changemakers mentioned in this book are exceptional in their impact, yet the research, stories, lessons, and studies in this book show that the changemaker mindset, leadership skills, and action orientation are accessible to each and everyone of us.
In sharing their stories, the author’s goal isn’t that you feel the pressure to follow in their footsteps. Armed with all that you’ve learned, you are now ready to do more than that: It’s time for you to embrace your own identity as a changemaker and stand on the shoulders of these changemaker giants. This is your invitation to take the lessons you’ve learned in this book and apply them to your own life and the change that you are uniquely suited to lead. We need you to bring all your experiences, interests, passion, and skills – and yes, changemaker mindset, leadership, and action – to driving forward change. We need you to lead change from wherever you are, and to make the difference you are meant to make.
BECOMING THE LEADER YOU WISH YOU HAD
Whether it’s student changemakers at UC Berkeley, water-access changemakers he coached in Phnom Penh, or technology changemakers he’d advised in the Midwest, one common thread in their prowess of leading positive change is “applied empathy.” Not just seeing things from another’s perspective, but actively doing something with that newfound perspective.
The author had the wonderful privilege of getting to know so many changemakers at the very beginning of their journeys, when they are filled with raw energy and excitement for change but unsure of where to channel it. One simple maxim he offer is: “Be the __________ you wish you’d had.” Be the boss you wish you’d had. Be the mentor you wish you’d had. Be the parent you wish you’d had. Be the teacher you wish you’d had. Or be the friend you wish you’d had. It’s a simple but inclusive way to put empathy into practice. We know what it is to lack something, and so we can consciously decide to provide it to others.
This is especially applicable as we think about establishing and defining our own leadership styles. Is there something you wish other leaders had done for you? If so, what a perfect opportunity to make sure those you lead don’t miss out like you did.
SUMMONING YOUR COURAGE
By now, you’ve learned new and effective changemaker leadership skills. You know what it takes to transform your idea into action.
There’s just one thing you need to do to become an effective changemaker: summon the courage to go be a changemaker.
When the author teach, he always close the semester with the words of novelist Anais Nin, a changemaker herself. She writes: “Life change or expands according to one’s courage.”
If you summon your courage to challenge something, you’ll never be left with regret. How sad it is to spend your life wishing, “If only i’d had a little more courage.” Whatever the outcome may be, the important thing is to step forward on the path you believe is right.
—Daisaku Ikeda
Now is the time to step into the courage that’s been inside you this whole time, and expand your changemaker impact.
Can you find the courage calling out from inside you? The courage to stop thinking of changemaking as something that other people do, and tell yourself that it’s now something you do. The courage to stop waiting until things are perfect before you begin to lead change and instead to commit to taking action right now, even if that means embracing some failures along the way.
It’s okay and perfectly normal to feel a bit scared as you think about becoming a changemaker! As artist Damon Davis recounted about his work in raising up the stories of protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, “Courage is contagious.” The more you practice a bit of courage, the more your courage to make change will multiply.
You don’t have to take a huge leap; you just have to find the courage to start that. That is what thousands of changemakers before you have done, and now it’s your turn to join them.
The world has never been more ready for you.
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